ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N3762 L2/10-063 2010-02-23 Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set International Organization for Standardization Organisation Internationale de Normalisation Международная организация по стандартизации Doc Type: Working Group Document Title: Preliminary proposal for encoding the Kpelle script in the SMP of the UCS Source: UC Berkeley Script Encoding Initiative (Universal Scripts Project) Authors: Michael Everson and Charles Riley Status: Individual Contribution Action: For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC Date: 2010-02-23 1. Introduction. A syllabic script for the Kpelle language was devised in the 1930’s by Gbili, a chief of Sanoyea, in Bong County, Liberia, during the 1930’s. Accounts usually mention that Gbili was inspired by revelation in a dream. In one retelling, Gbili dictated the script in nearly complete form to Lee-Polu- Mala-Yale, from the village of Zongkai. The script was actively used for a few decades after its invention, by other chiefs, including Bono-Boi of Yanekwele, their scribes, and by one of the wives of Gbili, Neni- Tee. Uses included sending messages, keeping tax and store records, recording legal debts, and compiling a recipe book. (Stone 1990:136-137; Dalby 1967:30, f.n. 2). It has not been determined how many of these texts may have survived the Liberian civil wars, but probably very little if any original material remains. The first scholarly reference to the Kpelle script comes from Johannes Friedrich (1937), who offered little in the way of accompanying detail. A first attempt at analysis came through with Lassort (1951), who included data from two sources, collected separately in the field. David Dalby published an analysis in 1967 based on the Lassort data, and Ruth Stone (1990) has produced a more recent article, using her own field research, the collection of which dates from 1970. The use of the script has been light, but continued at least through the 1980’s among the Kpelle. 2. Structure. One of the unique features of the Kpelle syllabary is that it encodes for pairs of syllables, what Dalby terms “mutational pairs”, that are related by the phonological similarity of their initial consonants; thus reducing the total number of characters encoded by about half of what it would be otherwise. In this proposal, only one character has been proposed for these mutational pairs for example, 16C02 KPI-GBI is used for both kpi and gbi. Sometimes, however, a mutational pair has two glyphs available for use interchangeably. Thus, for the pair of related syllables ka and ga, either KA-GA or GA-KA may be used, and for the pair of related syllables ka and ga, either TI-DI or DI-TI may be used. Lassort’s data is presented as two full sets of glyphs across the range of characters, and his data is largely repeated in the Dalby source in a compiled tabular form that attempts to unify the two Lassort sources. Comparing the data presented in Lassort and Stone, there are small sets of characters found in one but not the other. The most notable of these are the Kpelle digits, which Stone notes, “were added later also. The late Peter Giddings, a young boy at the time of the script’s invention, recalled how he returned to Sanoyea during a school vacation, to be shown the script. Peter said that he pointed out the absence of characters for numbers to Gbili. He then helped him devise a system, which supplemented the original characters of the script.” (Stone 1990:139). Most series of syllables can be traced cleanly through from Lassort to Stone. 1 Dalby’s chart shows a number of glyph variants. It is likely that these should be treated as Vai and Bamum glyph variants have been: that if they are required, either a dedicated font for them should be used, or OpenType tables to invoke alternate forms. The forms used in the chart are the primary ones given in Dalby. 3. Collating order. Collation order is as in the code chart. Lassort’s method of collation loosely follows a Latin-based sort, using the initial consonant of transliterated syllables as the primary key to the collation, with the ending vowels of the syllable serving to provide the secondary collation weight. Dalby and Stone both opt for a tabular presentation of the data, ordered nearly identically to each other, following Welmers (1973), with the initial consonants beginning each row in their associated pairs—p/b, ɓ/m̀, kp/gb, f/v, t/d, l/n, h(s)/j(z), y/ny, k/g, kw/gw, ɣ(/ŋ̀), ɣ or w, w(/ŋ̀w)—followed by nasal syllables and the syllable lengthening characters M, Y-NY, and NG. 4. Character names. The usual UCS conventions are used, with BH representing b, B representing ɓ, EE representing e, E representing ɛ, OO representing o, O representing ɔ, and NG representing ŋ. Nasalized consonants are written with a final -N. 5. Linebreaking. Letters behave as in Vai and Bamum. 6. Punctuation and digits. To date, no script-specific punctuation has been seen. Characters exist for the numbers one through ten; no zero has yet been attested. 7. Unicode Character Properties. 16C00;KPELLE SYLLABLE PI-BHI;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; .. 16C69;KPELLE SYLLABLE NG;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 16C71;KPELLE DIGIT ONE;Nd;0;L;;1;1;1;N;;;;; 16C72;KPELLE DIGIT TWO;Nd;0;L;;2;2;2;N;;;;; 16C73;KPELLE DIGIT THREE;Nd;0;L;;3;3;3;N;;;;; 16C74;KPELLE DIGIT FOUR;Nd;0;L;;4;4;4;N;;;;; 16C75;KPELLE DIGIT FIVE;Nd;0;L;;5;5;5;N;;;;; 16C76;KPELLE DIGIT SIX;Nd;0;L;;6;6;6;N;;;;; 16C77;KPELLE DIGIT SEVEN;Nd;0;L;;7;7;7;N;;;;; 16C78;KPELLE DIGIT EIGHT;Nd;0;L;;8;8;8;N;;;;; 16C79;KPELLE DIGIT NINE;Nd;0;L;;9;9;9;N;;;;; 16C7A;KPELLE NUMBER TEN;No;0;L;;;;10;N;;;;; 8. Acknowledgements. This project was made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, which funded the Universal Scripts Project (part of the Script Encoding Initiative at UC Berkeley) in respect of the Kpelle encoding. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment of the Humanities. 9. Bibliography Bible Society in Monrovia. 1967. Gbanaŋ-Woo-Kɛɛ Ninai. [Kpelle New Testament.] Dalby, David. 1967. “A survey of the indigenous scripts of Liberia and Sierra Leone: Vai, Kpelle, Kpelle, Kpelle and Bassa” in African Language Studies 8. 1-51. Friedrich, J. 1937. “Schriftgeschichtliche Betrachtungen” in Zeitschrift der deutsche morgenländischen Gesellschaft 91 (N.F. 16). 331. Gay, John and William Welmers. 1971. Mathematics and logic in the Kpelle language. Ibadan: Institute of African Studies. Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/ Konoshenko, Maria. 2008. Tonal systems in three dialects of the Kpelle language. Mande Languages and Linguistics, 2nd International Conference, 2008, Abstracts and papers. 145-146. 2 Lassort, A. 1951. “L’écriture guerzée” in Premiere Conférence Internationale des Africanistes de l’Ouest, 1945, Comptes rendus. Vol. 2. 209-215. Leger, Jean Le P. [1975?] Dictionnaire guerzé, kpèlè, wo. [Nzerekore?: s.n.] Stone, Ruth. 1988. Dried millet breaking : time, words, and song in the Woi epic of the Kpelle. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Stone, Ruth. 1990. “Ingenious invention: the indigenous Kpelle script” in Liberian Studies Journal 15:2. 135-144. Welmers, W. 1950 “New light on consonant change in Kpelle” in Zeitschrift für Phonetik 4. 105-118. Welmers, W. “Internal evidence of borrowing in Kpelle” in General Linguistics 5. 47-57. Welmers, W. 1962. “The phonology of Kpelle” in Journal of African Linguistics 1. 13-26. Welmers, W. 1964. “The syntax of emphasis in Kpelle” in Journal of West African Languages 1, 13-26. Welmers, W. 1969. “The morphology of Kpelle nominals” in Journal of African Linguistics 8, 73-101. Westermann, D. & Melzian, H. J. 1930. The Kpelle language in Liberia: Grammatical outline, colloquial sentences, and vocabulary. Berlin: Reimer. Winkler, Elizabeth Grace. 1997. Kpelle-English dictionary with English-Kpelle glossary. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. 3 16C00 Kpelle 16C7F 16C0 16C1 16C2 16C3 16C4 16C5 16C6 16C7 0 16C00 16C10 16C20 16C30 16C40 16C50 16C60 1 16C01 16C11 16C21 16C31 16C41 16C51 16C61 16C71 2 16C02 16C12 16C22 16C32 16C42 16C52 16C62 16C72 3 16C03 16C13 16C23 16C33 16C43 16C53 16C63 16C73 4 16C04 16C14 16C24 16C34 16C44 16C54 16C64 16C74 5 16C05 16C15 16C25 16C35 16C45 16C55 16C65 16C75 6 16C06 16C16 16C26 16C36 16C46 16C56 16C66 16C76 7 16C07 16C17 16C27 16C37 16C47 16C57 16C67 16C77 8 16C08 16C18 16C28 16C38 16C48 16C58 16C68 16C78 9 16C09 16C19 16C29 16C39 16C49 16C59 16C69 16C79 A 16C0A 16C1A 16C2A 16C3A 16C4A 16C5A 16C7A B 16C0B 16C1B 16C2B 16C3B 16C4B 16C5B C 16C0C 16C1C 16C2C 16C3C 16C4C 16C5C D 16C0D 16C1D 16C2D 16C3D 16C4D 16C5D E 16C0E 16C1E 16C2E 16C3E 16C4E 16C5E F 16C0F 16C1F 16C2F 16C3F 16C4F 16C5F 4 Date: 2010-02-23 Printed using UniBook™ (http://www.unicode.org/unibook/) 16C00 Kpelle 16C7A 16C3C KPELLE SYLLABLE NYEEN Syllables in -i 16C3D KPELLE SYLLABLE NGEEN 16C00 KPELLE SYLLABLE PI-BHI 16C01 KPELLE SYLLABLE BI-MI Syllables in -e 16C02 KPELLE SYLLABLE KPI-GBI 16C3E KPELLE SYLLABLE PE-BHE 16C03 KPELLE SYLLABLE FI-VI 16C3F KPELLE SYLLABLE BE-ME 16C04 KPELLE SYLLABLE TI-DI 16C40 KPELLE SYLLABLE KPE-GBE 16C05 KPELLE SYLLABLE DI-TI 16C41 KPELLE SYLLABLE FE-VE 16C06 KPELLE SYLLABLE LI-NI 16C42 KPELLE SYLLABLE TE-DE 16C07 KPELLE SYLLABLE HI-JI 16C43 KPELLE